reader-essay

By Anonymous in California “Don’t let your karma run over your dogma.” I heard this cheeky saying on the radio when I was in high school, and immediately laughed then tucked it away in the back of my mind to pull out at an opportune moment. Of course, back

By Jonathan Kass You are programmed to want children. You’re past thirty now and the cajoling from your genes is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Do it, they wheedle. Everyone likes you. The world needs more people just like you. That may be true, you think. You have always

I can’t open Instagram anymore By Preeti Kulkarni I can’t open Instagram anymore. Every time I do, I see a line of infographics reposted by various well meaning acquaintances, designed to spread awareness about the various evils plaguing our society but that always feel one-note and performative.  I

By Barney Adams I read Tangle daily, and remembered that the word “entrepreneur” was mentioned along with the announcement that the publication welcomed essays from its readers. Without thinking (a natural reaction), I thought. “I am an entrepreneur, I like to write… why not grace them with a story?” When

By Barbara Khristi This essay originally appeared in The Strad, and has been lightly edited from the original. “Every performance is a monument to a person whose voice cannot be heard anymore.” — Amnon Weinstein  The internationally renowned exhibition, Violins of Hope, came to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, four years after it was

The worst kind of bus girlie By Bethany Kaylor This piece first appeared on Bethany’s blog, “Books and beans, beans and books,” and has been lightly edited from the original. A few months back, I spent a Saturday traipsing around San Francisco with a new friend. We took a

By Elias Leventhal I was first exposed to math in sixth grade. I wasn’t raised in a cave, or by wolves; my childhood was perfectly normal. But sixth grade was when I discovered Mathcounts and saw the true beauty of the subject for the first time. Mathcounts is the

The backstory "I think I had a stroke." It was at a Disney family vacation when my mom said her left leg was not working correctly. She was 87. These six words changed our world. After a year and a half of medical specialist visits, back surgery, physical

Scarborough, Maine, is a fast-growing coastal Southern Maine town. With growth comes change and with change comes both prosperity and heightened divisiveness among residents. Some of the sharpest divisions have emerged over school policy. The recalling of several school board members over disputes related to personnel, educational policy, and school

By Terrell Halaska Dunn Baseball is Life  By Terrell Halaska Dunn  Last year, Opening Day landed almost exactly one month after the death of my father-in-law, Jerry. People always talk about occasions like the first birthday, or Christmas, after a loved one dies as particularly hard. For my husband David,